


heartfelt and freaky alien commitment rituals

by suitablyskippy



Category: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Genre: Attempted Inebriation, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Space Travel & Tourism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:26:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28140864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suitablyskippy/pseuds/suitablyskippy
Summary: “Wow,” said the information desk attendant, sincerely. “Wow, yeah, that was so completely inspirational and cool, like, seriously. I can’t even explain how much I enjoyed the experience of listening to you share your feelings while I looked up the appropriate party events timetable to meet your needs and suit your desires, like,wow. Would you like the schedule formatted for neural net download or upload to your techno-reader?”“Could you just print it?” asked Arthur.(The highest and most mysterious level of Kathtyx 21-C's legendary hierarchical party culture is only for lifeforms who can prove the extraordinary length and strength of their relationship. For the sake of a party, Ford and Arthur are ready to fake it till they make it.)
Relationships: Arthur Dent/Ford Prefect
Comments: 30
Kudos: 144
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	heartfelt and freaky alien commitment rituals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spacedogprincess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacedogprincess/gifts).



The Gulvwarpan ultra-freighter belched them out through its hyperspace portal and into the dizzying, sickening swirl of infinity which streamed impossibly beyond it, and the abyss of hyperspace belched them out in turn into a pleasant little courtyard with a fountain in the middle. 

“Ugh,” said Arthur, flat on his back. 

“I know the feeling,” said Ford, flat on his back beside him. 

The fountain was a pleasant little fountain: the sculpture at its centre posed on one foot, a few dozen hands clasped endearingly, spouting water from a gracefully elongated proboscis. Overhead, the courtyard was strung with webs of tiny twinkling fairy lights. Beyond them the night sky was manic with the flare and pulse of light cannons, streaking silent colour through the darkness. 

“ _Ugh_ ,” Arthur said again, and attempted to sit up. There was a bench in the courtyard – a pleasant little bench, carved into the shape of a heart – and once he’d accomplished sitting he braced himself on the bench and, for his next trick, attempted standing. 

“Hands in the air! Seventh District security patrol! This is a restricted zone, and I’m here to restrict it!” 

“Oh, here we go again,” said Arthur, and dropped back onto the ground. He raised his hands. “Whenever you’re ready, officer. Have you got a clear shot? I recommend aiming for the chest pocket of my dressing gown, that’s where everyone else generally likes to aim.”

The uniformed patrol officer at the entrance of the courtyard was dressed all in white, with certain tasteful highlights picked out charmingly in pink: the visor of his helmet had a pink sheen to the clouded glass; the toe-caps of the four boots he wore were buffed to a bronze-pink shine. The epaulettes of his uniform were also a delightfully rosy shade of pink, and each of these pink epaulettes jutted out some half a foot from the body. 

“You’re trespassing,” announced the patrol officer. 

“How do you know?” said Ford. 

“Because that’s what I do,” said the patrol officer. He carried a device slung beneath one arm which Arthur, with the jaded confidence of a man by now accustomed to travelling at Ford Prefect’s side, felt immediately sure was a weapon, and furthermore a weapon of some obscurely dreadful and ingenious function, and furthermore a weapon which was almost certain to end up being fired at them for one reason or another within the next fifteen minutes. The familiarity of the sight was almost a relief: Arthur was content to sit on the ground and wait to see what would happen next. “I patrol and look for trespassers, and then I verify their status and remove them to the appropriate district. And I know _you_ two are trespassing.”

“But _how_ do you know?” persisted Ford. He got to his feet, and ignored the alarmed tug Arthur gave his trouser-leg. “I mean, seriously. What’s the giveaway? How can you tell we’re not supposed to be here? Who’s to say we’re not fully authorised, signed, sealed, notarised in quintuplet, to be exactly where we are?”

“This is the Seventh District,” said the officer. “Reserved for the pleasure and enjoyment of lifeforms in committed and loving relationships of minimum five charks in duration. And if that was you, you’d be in the ceremonial attire to prove it.”

“But that _is_ us,” said Ford immediately. “Isn’t it? Arthur? What are you doing on the ground down there, Arthur? Arthur, my love? My third auxiliary heart? My sparkling stardust?” He seized Arthur’s shoulders and wrestled him enthusiastically to his feet, beaming all the while at the patrol officer. 

The patrol officer didn’t beam back. His pink visor was in place; his weapon was cradled in his arms; he stood charming and alarming and motionless. His epaulettes jutted out, ready for action – perhaps as handlebars, or as very small balancing beams for miniature gymnasts. 

“Arthur,” hissed Ford, wrapping Arthur’s arm around himself to stop Arthur from collapsing down to the ground again in protest, “do you have any idea where we are?”

“None whatsoever,” said Arthur, disappointed, “in fact I was rather hoping _you_ might know.” 

“The Seventh District! A society ranked by relationship duration! Hell, you know what this means?”

“Not a clue,” said Arthur, “so if you don’t know either then we’re more or less buggered, I suppose. But what’s new?”

“It means that ultra-freighter kicked us off half a solar system too soon! We’re on Kathtyx 21-C!”

“Are we? That’s nice,” said Arthur, who could see the wild frenzy of Ford’s excitement and was trying his best to be supportive, in much the same way that a habitual arsonist who happened to spot a wildfire raging which he hadn’t been personally responsible for kindling might choose to encourage it with a couple of extra branches thrown into the blaze anyway: just out of principle, as a token of solidarity and support. 

“ _Nowhere_ parties the way Kathtyx 21-C parties,” said Ford. He still hadn’t allowed his beaming smile to falter for a moment; he was speaking through his teeth, and the effect was uncanny. “This place is legendary, and I mean that literally: there’s nothing but legends. Fairy tales! Bedtime stories for baby Betelgeusians of the most extraordinary and far out nightlife in the galaxy! But no one’s ever managed to infiltrate these ultra-elite and exclusive parties for proof... _no_ one... no one ever, ever, _ever_...”

“—until now,” said Arthur, “you’re leaving this big dramatic pause because you’re about to say _until now_ , Ford, come on, I know you’re going to do it, you’re going to put on a dramatic voice and say—”

“— _until now_ ,” concluded Ford, in a staggeringly dramatic voice. “And _we_ , Arthur, are going to infiltrate twice. The first time I’ll drink too much to remember any of it, and the second time I’ll also drink too much to remember it but I’ll simultaneously be taking notes with the hand I’m not using to drink, and the Guide’ll fork out so much to get its editorial tentacles on this sensational exclusive report that the whole galaxy will become our affordable oyster. Lightspeed business class, baby!” 

And, alight with excitement, Ford rounded once more on the patrol officer who stood at the courtyard’s entrance. 

“That’s us,” Ford announced. “Seventh District! Very deeply in love, like, extremely so. We are just so profoundly and totally in love at this instant that it staggers me you can’t see it for yourself.” 

His arm was around Arthur’s shoulders. He squeezed; he shone a dazzling smile towards the patrol officer. Above them the fairy lights twinkled; beside them, the fountain tinkled. Behind them, the heart-shaped love bench emitted a sigh which trembled and quivered with a sense of ecstatic yearning. 

Arthur gave it a sharp look and stepped closer to Ford’s side. 

“We’re in a committed and loving relationship of – how long was it? Five charks?” Ford shook his head, smiling ever so slightly: there was no mistaking his fondly condescending opinion on relationships of a mere five charks’ duration. “Five charks is nothing, we’ll have been at it for eleven charks next triurnal rotation. So you can see we’re not trespassing, and there’s no need for you to be pointing that big ugly—”

“I don’t believe you,” said the officer. His impressive pink epaulettes bristled with hostility. “Where’s your ceremonial attire? Where’s the proof?”

“If you must know,” said Ford, “we’re on a very special kind of date night tonight. We’re revisiting the earliest days of our courtship, before even so much as one single solitary chark had passed in the wondrous starlight of our love, which was also, naturally, long before we’d earned the ceremonial attire which we most certainly _do_ possess and is at home waiting for us right now. Sort of a roleplay thing, yeah? You get where I’m going with this?”

“Your licence papers—”

“We can do you one better,” said Ford. “Arthur, prove it. “

“What?” Arthur said in alarm. “Prove what? What?”

“Our relationship,” said Ford, “our love, Arthur, our committed and enduring romance, Arthur. Prove it, quick. Show him that thing you’ve got which proves it.”

“What thing?” 

“That _thing_ ,” said Ford, “you know, that alien thing you have which proves it. Show the nice officer that thing which will stop us getting hit with his insubstantialiser gun and wafted out of this pleasant little courtyard in a cloud of discorporeal but fully conscious particles.”

“Oh, _that_ thing,” said Arthur hurriedly, “yes, that thing, of course, I was confused for a moment there. Well, um – it’s a, sort of, let me see...” 

He rummaged through his bag. A foldaway chair, collapsed down to the size of his palm; a deck of suggestive Hyper-Tarot cards from Amatulthi, which made Arthur’s face hot with their images of glow-in-the-dark, multi-limbed allure as he pushed them hastily aside; a few bundled pairs of socks; a silvery stone smoothed by the waves of a golden ocean they’d recently tried their luck at sifting for platinum; his towel – and, underneath it all, the same jumbled detritus which can be found at the bottom of every hitch-hiker’s bag: a couple of screwed-up receipts, a few sticks of Jakollvy’s Electric Gum (Tingles Guaranteed!) (Lasting Neurological Damage Not _Not_ Guaranteed!), scraps of paper with notes and numbers scrawled on them which must have seemed important to him at the time but were unfathomable by now; two loose buttons, the stub of an unsharpened pencil, a bottle cap... 

“The particularly vile and creative thing about a ray attack from an insubstantialiser gun,” said Ford, applying a loving squeeze to Arthur’s shoulder, “which I mention purely as a curiosity, Arthur, my dearest sunbeam, is the way its victims don’t lose consciousness. They’re still alive and wide awake. They’re just also rendered down into an incomprehensibly vast amount of discrete particles drifting through the atmosphere forever. Don’t you find that interesting?” 

Arthur snatched the bottle cap from his bag. “ _This_ ,” he said, displaying it, “where I’m from, this is actually – it’s actually a, a... love token. You exchange them on anniversaries. And back on my home planet,” he went on, thinking of existence as a cloud of incorporeal particles of mist and finding his imagination surge to meet the challenge, “on your first anniversary you exchange huge ones. _This_ big,” explained Arthur, reaching out wide to demonstrate. “And every year after that—”

“—every chark after that,” muttered Ford—

“—every chark after that, you exchange a smaller one. Smaller and smaller every chark, until at last you exchange... _this_. The smallest possible one. The symbol of the strongest possible relationship.”

“Let me see that,” said the officer. He held it up to his smoky pink visor and turned it over, examining it. He tapped it against the side of his gun. 

“You see how small it is?” Ford said encouragingly. 

“It is pretty small,” the officer allowed, grudgingly. 

“Pretty small?” said Arthur. “ _Pretty_ small?! It’s tiny! Minuscule! Barely visible to the naked eye! And that’s because we’ve been together and loving and—”

“—committed,” put in Ford, “enduringly so, romantically adoring of each other—”

“—for so very long that it’s _very_ small,” said Arthur, “because, as I mentioned, that indicates the strength and length of our relationship. Which is really very strong and long indeed.”

The officer held the bottle cap up to the fairy lights. “Where did you say you’re from again?” he asked. 

“Earth,” said Arthur. “England. Bristol. Well, not the city, just one of the suburbs, really, more of a commuter town, just off the outskirts of the outskirts of the M5 and then a bit further out again – it’s not a suburb at all, to tell the truth, not even a town, more of a village, barely that; but generally I just say Bristol, to save confusion, because people don’t tend to recognise—”

“And the funny thing about Earth,” Ford cut in, “is that it’s actually been demolished. Wiped clean off the maps! So there’s no way for you to check that Arthur’s telling the truth, which of course he is, because he’s the last living expert on the warm and loving and heartfelt commitment rituals of his home planet’s freaky alien culture.”

“I would never lie about my love,” said Arthur stridently; he was finding the prospect of life as a cloud of mist to be a better fuel for his imagination than he could ever have foreseen. “I would never lie about _our_ love. I’d never dare to lie about the passion which—”

“All right,” the officer interrupted, “that’ll do, I’ve heard enough.” He handed back the bottle cap to Arthur, respectfully. Then he raised his gun and pointed it straight at Arthur’s head and pulled the trigger, all at once, too swiftly for either of them to react or commit to an act of great heroics or even yell _I knew this was coming_ — 

But the gun clicked, and beeped, and then it hummed for a moment and spat a ticket of white paper from its mouth. 

The officer slapped it into Arthur’s hand. He raised the gun again and pointed it at Ford, and a ticket spat out for him as well. 

“Your Seventh District licences. Don’t lose them. And if you’ll take my advice, gentlemen, you really ought to consider getting back into your ceremonial attire. Don’t want to run into any more trouble tonight, do you?”

And Ford and Arthur were left alone together once more in the pleasant little courtyard. The fountain cascaded sweetly; the mats of twinkling lights strung above them sparkled and winked and shone. The night sky blazed with the dazzling streaks of light cannons. 

The heart-shaped bench emitted a romantic little tune when Arthur dropped himself onto it, and murmured happily when he elbowed it in disapproval. “Now what?” he asked Ford. 

“Now we find some ceremonial attire,” said Ford, “and then we find a party invitation, and then we find a party, and then we find some drinks. Seventh District, Arthur! Kathtyx 21-C! We’ve got a licence not to get evaporated _and_ a licence to party!” 

+++ 

Their pleasant little courtyard turned out to be connected to a great deal of other pleasant little courtyards by a complex tangle of pleasant little alleyways, from which Arthur and Ford stumbled free onto a peaceful boulevard. 

The pavements here were broad. Along them strolled a variety of lifeforms in a variety of fashions, all of them united by the epaulettes which erupted like unusual antlers from their shoulders. Some were only stubs, some merely a foot or so in width, but others were stern, impressive prongs which jutted a perilous distance from the body on either side; the pedestrians navigated each other without effort, turning sideways when necessary to move through gaps. 

Cherry blossom trees flourished alongside the roads. Giraffe-like creatures, blotched in pink and white, pulled trundling carts where loving couples sat apart from each other, separated by the jut of their epaulettes, hands outstretched between them to brush each other’s fingertips. Fairy lights twinkled overhead. Music lulled from hidden speakers, its chords alien but nevertheless unmistakeably sappy. 

Ford came to a halt in front of a tailor’s shop. Glowing pink, its signboard said: _Lyx Syzzleglut – A Passion For Fashion And Passion_. 

“We’ve got no money,” Arthur reminded him. 

“Who needs money when you’ve got love?” said Ford, and threw the door confidently wide before Arthur had a chance to start listing off any of the innumerable circumstances under which he felt money might, in fact, be of more immediate and practical use than love. 

The woman at the shop’s counter had more than the usual number of arms and from the shoulder of each one jutted a lengthy epaulette in vibrant pink; she bristled like a neon porcupine with foot-long spines. She was wearing much the same expression that any sales assistant in any shop in the galaxy would have worn if they’d found their shop contaminated by the presence of two hitch-hikers who wore their hitch-hiking as clearly and as pungently on their scruffy sleeves as Ford and Arthur. 

“Hey! You having a good evening? You having a _great_ evening? I sure hope so! My shining moonbeam here and I seem to have mislaid our ceremonial attire,” explained Ford, “though we’ve only got ourselves to blame for how distracted we get whenever we’re gazing into the seriously just amazingly limpid depths of each other’s eyes. Am I right? That’s love, baby! _You_ know how it is! So, hey, you think you could help a couple of party cats out and fix us up with a new set?” 

“We’ve got no money,” Arthur put in quickly. He felt this was the kind of information it was better to state upfront than risk leaving it unsaid until the point when the local version of mob justice was pursuing you along the street and you were screaming frantically back over your shoulder that you’d never said you _did_ have money, so you’d never lied, technically. 

“No chance,” said Lyx Syzzleglut. “That dressing gown looks like a biohazard, by the way. Is this some kind of sicko prank from those sulf-chewing creeps over on Kathtyx 21-A?”

“We’ll be attending a Seventh District party,” said Ford, flourishing his licence. 

“But then again,” said Lyx Syzzleglut, who already had a tape measure unravelling between two of her hands and a pair of scissors snapping eagerly in another, “who needs money when you’ve got love? It’d be an honour to outfit two froods as upright downright fly as you,” she went on, taking up a pincushion and a batch of fabric samples and pressing another spare hand ardently to one of her own epaulettes, “an honour and a privilege and a source of lasting joy which will bring me comfort throughout the rest of my natural lifespan and undoubtedly well into the many happy virtual reality-generated centuries which lie beyond. Seventh District, hey! Wow! Man, why didn’t you say so? No cost, no fee! The only thing I’ll ask in return is the joy of hearing of your hearts.”

“Sure,” said Ford, “yeah, absolutely, you got it. What is that, exactly?”

“I want you to tell me about your love for the entire period of time I’ll spend measuring and cutting and fitting your ceremonial attire,” said Lyx Syzzleglut, “without stopping, or _I’ll_ stop, and I won’t continue, because a tailor is an artist and any changes to my artistic environment while I’m in the process of creation will throw me out of the moment and make it utterly impossible for me to continue work on that failed project ever again.” Turning sideways, she performed a brisk efficient sidling manoeuvre out from behind the counter. “Seventh District! What a thrill! What a zany kick! You guys must have shared so many precious intimate moments, and I can’t wait to hear all about them.”

“Er—”

“You drive a hard bargain,” said Ford, “but you’ve got yourself a deal. Arthur, my dearest high-velocity meteoroid, over to you.”

“Er,” said Arthur, who was already being helplessly shepherded towards a mirror and urged to spread his arms, “well, there’s, you know, there’s just so much to say. Sort of hard to know where to begin, isn’t it?”

“Begin at the beginning,” said Lyx Syzzleglut, moving briskly with her tape measure. “Only four limbs? Nothing retractable I should know about? Not hiding a tail under that delightfully one-of-a-kind dressing gown of yours, prehensile or otherwise? No? Begin at the beginning and continue from there. Spare no details. I want to _live_ this love.”

“Er,” said Arthur, trying not to look too mortified about the measuring tape unfurling along his inner leg, “well, I suppose, er... Ford and me? Well, I suppose it all began with a mass extinction event.”

“It did not,” said Ford. “It began with a pint.” And, catching the quizzical wriggle of Arthur’s eyebrows in the mirror, he elaborated: “Our _relationship_ , Arthur, my – my exquisite solar flare. Lyx Syzzleglut wants to know about the full and glorious span of our relationship, not merely our intergalactic adventuring partnership. And it began with a pint.”

“Multiple pints,” said Arthur. He wasn’t so much hazarding a guess as risking an assumption based on extensive subsequent experience. 

“In the Old Duke’s Fiddle,” said Ford, “you remember, that grimy little place off the Mill’s End roundabout? The lights in the gents’ never seemed to work after about half nine, you just had to fumble your way to a urinal and hope for the best. You were in there for a drink after work and I was in there because it was Wednesday, and a drink or two always helps Wednesdays go down more smoothly, in my experience. And I remember you were wearing a tie.”

“I was?” said Arthur. 

“You were,” said Ford. “I remember you were wearing a tie with this insufferably jaunty blue and yellow polka-dot pattern, and you put your elbows on the bar and your head in your hands, and you sighed, and you loosened your tie... like _so_ ,” and with two fingers Ford mimicked the gesture, “and you said—”

+++

“I can’t stand Wednesdays,” said Arthur, many years and approximately eleven charks ago. “Oh, Mondays are bad, I’ll grant you that, no one likes a Monday, and on Tuesdays at least you’ve got the relief of it no longer being Monday to console yourself while you’re forced to face down the prospect of tomorrow being Wednesday. But Wednesdays? What’s Wednesday got going for it? I mean, seriously. I’m seriously asking. Does anyone know? Has anyone _ever_ known?”

Ford, listening in, moved several barstools nearer. He could tell already that Arthur was a man after his own heart, and suspected that if he played his cards right then he himself might become a man after Arthur’s own bar tab. 

“They should get rid of it, if you ask me,” said Arthur, “which no one ever does, but if they did that’s what I’d tell them. Sod Wednesdays! What’s a Wednesday ever done for anyone? Write Wednesdays off as a failed experiment, say thanks very much but we gave having Wednesdays a trial run and it just didn’t work out for us, so we won’t be requiring any more of them; from now on we’ll skip the week straight to Thursday.”

“Careful what you wish for,” said Ford. “It’s a matter of proven astrophysical record that Thursdays are the worst day of the week, cosmically speaking.”

“Then sod Thursdays too!” said Arthur, and slammed his pint glass down against the bar with sufficiently wild abandon that the drink inside it slopped outside it; he licked a dribble of beer off the side of his hand, fuming. “A five-day week! How’s that sound? I’ll drink to that!” 

Ford was more than willing to drink to that as well. “Might as well get rid of Mondays too, while we’re at it,” he suggested. 

“Done! Gone! Sod Mondays! I’ll drink to _that_!” Arthur attempted to do so, and found himself unable. Ford signalled the bartender and remedied the situation. “And Fridays—”

“Just another unnecessary hurdle to stumble over on your way to the weekend,” said Ford. 

“Exactly,” Arthur said vehemently, “so sod Fridays too.” 

They drank to that. 

“And now we’re just left with Tuesdays and weekends,” said Ford, “which is not only untidy but also, frankly speaking, hazardous, if you’re approaching the matter from a practical astrochronographic perspective. You don’t want to leave a weekday just dangling out on its own like that, you could trip over it and break your neck.”

“Good point,” said Arthur, “and a good point deserves to be drank to. Drunk to. _I_ deserve to be drunk too!” he told Ford heatedly, and gave it his best effort. 

Ford, out of a sense of deep compassion and solidarity, joined him. Both of them were successful in very short order. 

“Cosmically speaking,” said Arthur, “cosmically speaking... Do you know what happened at work today? _Do_ you?”

Ford didn’t, so Arthur told him. Ford made sympathetic noises in what he hoped were the right places and signalled the bartender in what his own plentiful experience of holding forth in outraged inebriation about the injustices of life at strangers in the pub on weekday evenings told him were most assuredly the right places, and by the time that that Wednesday became a Thursday they were staggering arm in arm through a gap in the chainlink fence of a building site, where they collided with and rebounded from a motionless yellow digger, mutually intent on climbing the scaffolding as high as they could go and yelling up into the night in case the extra altitude would prove enough to catch the attention of any passing flying saucers.

“There’s a planet in the, the – the Fafafallufa system, Fafafallufa 2-B if I recall correctly which I may or may not or may or may not or—”

“That’s _my_ hand,” said Arthur. 

“No, it’s not,” said Ford, moving it to another rung on the scaffolding, “ah, so it is. Have it back. Here you go. You’re welcome. On Fafafallufa 2-B they made Mondays illegal, that’s what I was saying. The government felt the negative attitude towards Mondays was affecting workplace productivity enough that they banned Mondays – just bat-out flanned them! Flat-out banned them! Anyone found in possession of a calendar printed before the change in law which still recognises the existence of Mondays is automatically sentenced to exile, which for the Fafafallufanians is a punishment worse than death, since every other planet in the galaxy still persists in recognising the existence of Mondays. I don’t seem to be climbing very fast,” Ford remarked. 

“Me neither,” said Arthur, who was lying on a pile of sandbags. He waved a hand above his head and didn’t manage to find a rung to hold onto; he kept waving anyway, determined. Upside down and gently swirling he could see Ford Prefect: who was standing in front of the scaffolding, moving his arms and legs in slow, thoughtful gestures as though swimming. “You’re not lifting your feet up.”

“I’m certainly not lifting _your_ feet up.”

“You’re certainly not lifting your feet up either, though.”

“As I age I find myself increasingly unsure of whether I’ve ever truly lifted up my feet,” said Ford cryptically, and then he gave a hiccup and collapsed onto the sandbags to lie beside Arthur. 

A few stars shone feebly in the night sky above them. A single tiny red light blinked as it moved through the darkness, but in the steady, regular rhythm of an Earth aeroplane rather than the frenzied flashing pulse of an intergalactic speedcraft getting ready to buzz the joint. It was, Ford felt quite dismally sure, going to rain. 

“It’s going to rain,” said Ford. 

“It’s Thursday,” said Arthur, with glum confidence. “Of course it’s going to rain.”

“Sod Thursdays,” said Ford. “I’ve never met a Thursday I liked—”

+++

“—but I didn’t mind _that_ Thursday,” said Ford, many years and approximately eleven charks later, smoothing his hands down the peach-pink lapels of Lyx Syzzleglut’s latest creation. He turned, and Arthur hastily ducked as the epaulettes of Ford’s outfit swung by above his head, jutting a solid four feet from his shoulders on either side. “A pleasure doing business with you. Arthur, my... my heaving sunspot, shall we be heading on again?”

“You remember that night in an awful lot of detail,” said Arthur, “for someone who always happens to forget his wallet in another exactly identical parallel dimension except the other one’s the one that has his wallet in it as often as _you_ do, Ford.”

“Some details are more important than others,” said Ford. “Some events which take place in pubs are and were and have been more significant than others. I’m using up all my memory space on _our_ precious moments, baby, you can’t expect me to remember to bring money along on top of all that.” 

“I can just tell you guys are going to have the swerviest time at your party tonight,” said Lyx Syzzleglut happily, holding the shop door open as Arthur and Ford attempted to sidestep their way through it without smacking their epaulettes on each other or the frame. “If anyone asks you’ll tell them who kitted you out, won’t you? A few Seventh District regulars shopping here would really get a buzz going.”

“Of course we will,” said Arthur. “Er, though actually, since you mention it – these parties, these legendary Seventh District parties... you wouldn’t happen to know what exactly it is that’s supposed to be so sensational about them, would you?”

“Not a clue,” said Lyx Syzzleglut. She patted one of her own epaulettes. “I’m only licensed for the Fifth District, aren’t I? _Our_ parties are only forty-eight hour all-inclusive space cruise extravaganzas with optional virtual reality experiences tailored personally to the subconscious ideal of party perfection decoded from the brainwave scans of each individual guest to ensure that everyone can experience their own version of paradise while simultaneously sharing it with their beloved, with a fireworks show that lasts throughout the second day, unlimited drinks, and more than fifty heated outdoor jacuzzis. Our parties are nothing compared to the Seventh District, you know? But in a couple of charks, my most ardently adored asteroid belt and I will be Seventh District too – and believe you me,” said Lyx Syzzleglut wistfully, “we can’t _wait_ to find out what legendary delights those parties have in store for us.”

Navigating the busy pavements wasn’t as difficult as Arthur expected, mainly due to the fact that other pedestrians respectfully made way for them as soon as they caught sight of the impressive span of their officially licensed ceremonial Seventh District epaulettes. They couldn’t walk side by side anymore, so Arthur stuck close behind Ford instead: which made it conveniently much easier for Arthur to whisper surreptitiously into his ear. 

“About these parties,” began Arthur, whispering surreptitiously—

“All we’ve got to do now is find one,” said Ford, “and get ourselves invited, and drunk, and subsequently entered into the history books as ground-breaking pioneers of intergalactic party espionage. Greatness is so close I can taste it, Arthur!” 

“It’s just that this all seems very... official,” said Arthur. “And you keep saying things about espionage. And to start with you thought we might get turned into mist if they knew we were trespassing, which seems a pretty severe sort of consequence to be risking for the sake of a party you don’t even know anything about.”

“I know it’s incredible,” said Ford. “I know it’s the coolest and most ultimate party scene in the galaxy. I know Zaphod’s going to implode so extremely when he finds out we got ourselves into a Seventh District party on Kathtyx 21-C and he didn’t that it’s going to rip a brand new black hole into the fabric of the galaxy.” 

“But you don’t actually know _why_ these parties are so incredible,” said Arthur. “Do you? You don’t have any idea! We could get ourselves turned into mist and you wouldn’t even know what we were doing it for the sake of!”

Ford steered them sharply around a corner. A passing pedestrian dropped to a crouch to avoid the swoop of epaulettes, and called delightedly after them, “Party on, you mad cats!” 

“I’ll tell you what I do know,” Ford said once they were alone, speaking confidentially. “Listen, the thing about the Kathtyxines is that they’re all party mad. Right? They live to party, they die to party, their remains are traditionally interred in these funky light-up mausoleums with incredible bassline reverb which are one-half dance hall, one-half shrine to the memory of honoured ancestors... _all_ party. And they’ve refined the art of partying. They’ve dedicated generations’ worth of work to the cause. They’ve advanced the concept of what it is to party – what it _means_ to party! – beyond all off-planet understanding. They’re light-years ahead of the rest of the galaxy.”

“But if these parties are so special,” said Arthur, “and so famous, then why doesn’t everyone here just lie about it? Why isn’t everyone always strapping a couple of baguettes to their shoulders and sneaking in undercover?”

“Because they don’t lie about it.”

“No,” said Arthur, “no, hang on, you can’t just say something in a confident voice and pretend that’s the same thing as answering the question.” 

“But I did answer the question.” 

“You did _not_ ,” said Arthur. “You said the exact same thing I said, except you said it with panache and I just said it normally. I asked why they don’t lie, and you said they don’t lie, which isn’t explaining why they don’t lie; that’s just saying the same thing twice. That’s like asking why the sky is blue and someone telling you that the sky is blue. You _know_ the sky is blue! That information has already been established! The fact you’re asking _why_ it’s blue already implicitly confirms that you know it’s blue, and furthermore expresses the presumption that the person you’re asking is also already aware of the sky’s habitual blueness, as well as your hope that this other party involved in the conversation might be better informed than you as to the fundamental underlying _cause_ of its blueness. You... explained... _nothing_.”

“The sky’s green,” said Ford. 

Arthur peered up between the buildings. Another mesh of twinkling fairy lights separated the street from the night above, but after a few moments’ squinting he conceded that the sky was, in fact, a deep dark bottle green. 

“Listen, I’ll try again. They don’t lie about it... _because they don’t lie about it_. It’s just not done.”

Arthur imagined some kind of alien and terrifying truth-telling device. He imagined it pointier, and more forbidding, and felt relieved: _this_ was a motivation he could understand. “You mean it can’t be done?”

“No, it can be done. We’re going to do it. We’re already doing it! But it _isn’t_ done,” Ford said, and swivelled abruptly and dramatically to fix Arthur with his unnerving alien stare: intent and depthless, and yet all at once as deep as all infinity... 

The effect was somewhat dampened by the way Arthur had to fling himself backwards against the wall to avoid the decapitating slice of Ford’s epaulettes. A passing bunch of suit-wearing district bureaucrats hurled themselves into the street to get out of the way; a giraffe-pulled cart had to swerve to avoid them. An irritable horn blared. Cherry blossom petals swayed softly through the air; instrumental love songs trickled sweetly, ceaselessly, from the hidden speakers. 

Ford paid none of this the slightest mind. “It’s taboo,” he said. “It’s beyond taboo, it’s... _inconceivable_. The possibility of lying about it isn’t a possibility the Kathtyxine mind can even begin to comprehend. They don’t do it... _because they don’t do it_.”

“Are you sure _we_ should be doing it?” said Arthur. 

“Course we shouldn’t,” said Ford. “But where’s the fun in always doing what you should be doing, eh?”

“It’s just that, in my experience, the sort of fun you shouldn’t be having tends to end a lot sooner and more unpleasantly than the sort of fun you _should_ be having,” said Arthur stubbornly. “What’s going to happen to us if they find out we’re lying?”

“Oh, undoubtedly some unspeakable punishment,” said Ford carelessly. “The important part is what’ll happen when they _don’t_ find out, which—”

“No, sorry, hang on a moment, Ford. Rewind a little, please. Would you mind telling me just a bit more about this unspeakable punishment? I mean, how unspeakable are we talking here? Fatally unspeakable? The kind of unspeakable where you get some bits chopped off you? Or is it more like a sort of slap on the wrist, and the alien police just, they’ll just wag their fingers or their tentacles or whatever it is they’ve got, their... _appendages_... and they tell you sternly that you’ve been a very naughty boy, and the whole thing is unspeakable because everyone involved is too embarrassed to ever speak of it again?”

“Arthur! Relax! Chill out, come on, loosen up! Parties are _fun_ ,” said Ford, and he squeezed Arthur’s elbow coaxingly, to reassure him. He also gave Arthur a great big smile, which might have been reassuring in a universe where Ford’s greatest biggest smiles didn’t make him look quite so much like he was in the front seat of an ultrasonic rollercoaster blasting into a downwards plunge. “You’re looking at this all back-to-front, you’ve got your priorities screwy. Think of all the fun we’re going to have _not_ being unspeakably punished!”

“It’s just that I remember you also said we were facing an unspeakable punishment back when we got kicked out of the underground circus with all those mole things on, where was it, on Zuxitsko Minor—”

“—Zuxitsko Major,” corrected Ford, “and those weren’t mole things, those were the Most Arcane Ambassadors of the Velatinan Embassy, and that wasn’t a circus, either: that was the Velatinan Embassy—”

“—but _that_ punishment wasn’t unspeakable,” said Arthur. “That punishment wasn’t too bad at all, actually. All that happened was they made me eat two cans of sardines and then they chased us out of the tunnels and marched around the spaceport chanting insulting slogans about aliens who had no fur or respect until we left.”

“Those weren’t sardines,” said Ford. 

“They looked like sardines,” said Arthur. 

“They were _shaped_ like sardines,” said Ford. 

“They tasted like sardines,” said Arthur, who didn’t at all like the ominous significance developing in Ford’s voice. 

“They were supposed to,” said Ford. “That’s all part of it. Arthur,” he said, and pressed his hand to Arthur’s shoulder with an expression of pained and intimate remorse, “trust me, you’ll sleep easier tonight and every night for the rest of your life if we agree to leave this topic here and never, ever, ever return to it.”

“Right,” said Arthur. “Um. Well, all right. Um—”

“An information centre!” said Ford suddenly, and laughed in delight. “Hey, take a peek at that! This is just what we need!” 

He bolted eagerly for the double-wide entranceway and Arthur hurried after him, blurting frantic apologies to everyone who ducked or flung themselves aside or plunged down to a crouch to avoid them. 

The interior of the information centre looked like a confectioner’s shop in the first thirteen days of February. It was festooned; it was garlanded; it was laden with endless, silken swags of ribbon in red and pink and white. Every few minutes, some mechanism in the ceiling creaked and clicked and whirred open, and a fresh shower of confetti tumbled onto the heads of everyone milling around the displays and eyeing up the posters and queuing for an in-person consultation at the counter booths. 

They took a ticket and joined the line. 

“Hey, guys!” said the young man who was waiting for Ford and Arthur when their ticket number was finally called. “I’m Trot Harxelfart, and I’m so genuinely thrilled and excited about the chance to be of some assistance to you today. What can I help you with?”

“We’re looking for a party,” said Ford, lounging with his elbows on the counter. “Seventh District, as I’m sure you can tell.” He wiggled his shoulders, making the vast span of his epaulettes quiver like the wings of a dodo about to discover flight, and produced his licence paper. 

Out of sight beneath the counter, he stepped on Arthur’s foot. Arthur produced his licence paper too. 

“Wow, yeah, a party! Sure, I can help you with that, and I’m so totally keen to get started on sharing with you the information you require. I’ve just got to ask, though, if you wouldn’t mind doing a teeny tiny little favour for me first...?”

“What kind?” said Arthur.

“Just the teeniest tiniest kind,” promised Trot Harxelfart. “Like, _so_ small, seriously.”

“Yes, but what kind?” said Arthur testily.

“He’s asking for a bribe,” said Ford, straightening up. “Man, bugger this for a Venusian space-lark. Come on, Arthur, my... my rings of planetary dust, let’s blow this joint.”

“Hey, no! Not at all! Bribery? No way! I’m a professional,” said Trot Harxelfart indignantly, “and anyway, who needs money when you’ve got love? Seventh District! Wowee! All I want is to hear in detail what you value and treasure most about each other while I’m looking up the current events schedule for the Seventh District, and that’ll bring me more satisfaction than a whole sack of Altairian dollars ever could.”

“A sack of Altairian dollars isn’t actually worth that much on Kathtyx 21-C after you’ve done the currency conversion,” said Ford. 

“A whole satellite moon full of Altairian dollars, then,” said Trot Harxelfart. “You guys, believe me, I am so utterly stoked and enthusiastic to begin the process of getting this information for you and listening to the story of your love while I do so, like, I can’t even tell you. I’m ready when you are,” he added encouragingly, his hands poised above the keyboard of his holographic research terminal. “Shall we start together? Ready, set...”

“ _Ford_ ,” said Arthur, involuntarily: Ford’s foot had once more landed on Arthur’s, and applied pressure. As soon as Ford removed his foot Arthur kicked him wrathfully in the ankle. “I mean – what I mean to say is... _Ford_ , that’s him, the ginger bloke on my left here, he’s my...” 

Darling white dwarf...? Adored red giant...? At the critical moment Arthur’s knowledge of astronomy failed him, as it had so many times before. 

And, as so many times before, he improvised. 

“My... well, he’s just this guy, you know? But he’s _my_ guy. The thing about Ford is he’s – that he’s, I mean... Well,” said Arthur, launching another valiant attempt, “I could be dead. I could be dead about a million times over, but I’m not, am I? Although I did die once, technically – _just_ the once, haven’t made a habit of it – but there was some funny business with a wormhole involved so as you can see it didn’t stick, and that was thanks to Ford, as well. So – what I mean is, basically, regarding Ford... That, um, when I think about it—”

+++

A near-death experience stumbling into the freezing filthy waters of an Earth canal, drunk and staggering merrily along the towpath together. A near-death experience with the Voracious Vermin of Vfop, a carnivorous creature which particularly liked the taste of well-worn towelling. Innumerable near-death experiences with alcohol poisoning across innumerable planets in innumerable star systems, and innumerable near-death experiences with perfectly non-alcoholic alien drinks which nevertheless found reason to disagree violently with Arthur’s fragile human liver. A near-death experience with total planetary annihilation, which had unfortunately proven a full-death experience for everyone else involved beside the two of them. A near-death experience with hypothermia in the eternal winter of Rossotoso Gamma X-5, when the nearest backpackers’ hostel turned out to require a three-hour trek through a roaring blizzard, both their towels wrapped around both of them for heat as they staggered and shivered their way along in each other’s teeth-chattering embrace, and had to be medically thawed apart from each other when at last they collapsed, clinging and frozen, across the threshold. 

A near-death experience when Arthur had mistaken the friendly greeting of a local market trader for an attempted mugging, and reacted with a cry of panic which was, culturally, profoundly insensitive, and accidentally committed himself to duel to the death for the sake of the marketplace’s honour. A near-death experience when Arthur had mistaken an attempted mugging for the friendly greeting of a local market trader, and enthusiastically begun to barter before dozens of savage claws popped out from his mugger’s paws. A near-death experience with an attempted mugging which had been, unmistakeably, nothing but an attempted mugging: Ford had flourished his towel with the élan of a veteran bullfighter and yelled _Oi, come and get it, you big ugly rock-crunching son of a rock-crunching son of a rock-cruncher’s son_ – and when the mugger began rippling towards him in mortal offence, he and Arthur fled. 

A near-death experience when the airlock of a speedy little space-jet they’d hitched a lift with had sprung a leak. A near-death experience when the sleek bubble-dome of an even speedier little flying saucer they’d hitched a lift with had been struck by a fragment of some long-lost satellite, and splintered, and their rubbery green pilot had panicked and hit the emergency eject button. 

Near-death experience after near-death experience, but none of those experiences ever got near enough to Arthur to do worse than ruffle his hair with the speed of their passing, than make the tasselled cord of his dressing gown whip around in the wind from the nearness of his latest near miss: because Ford, one way or another, always kept them safe.

Ford kept them saf _er_ , anyway. Moderately safe-ish, most of the time. Not actively in danger of getting eaten by a big bad space-wolf, or at least not constantly, or at least not right now, or at least not as far as Arthur could tell, standing with him at the information counter of Kathtyx 21-C. 

And never mind how frequently it was Ford who was responsible for plunging them into yet another near-death experience in the first place, because Ford always found a way for them to wriggle back out of trouble again; and never mind either that sometimes Ford’s solutions to the problems were responsible for instigating further near-death experiences in their own right, because Ford always found a way to wriggle out of _those_ near-death experiences, as well. 

Who knew how long it had been since that Wednesday night in the Old Duke’s Fiddle? Ever since leaving Earth, the flow of time had ceased to flow and acquired instead a consistency rather more like a lukewarm plate of congealed baked beans. Time became gloopy, it clogged, it sputtered; time coughed itself up and fell back again. Time sometimes gushed forth rapidly and sometimes dried up entirely. 

Arthur had no real idea of how long he’d spent with Ford since Ford had flung them away from the threat of certain death and into the threat of marginally more uncertain death, but in all that time they’d never died – not in any way that mattered, at least; not in any way that counted. 

+++ 

“—so I, um. _You_ know. I... trust him,” said Arthur. “With my life. I suppose I’d say my life is the least of what I trust Ford with. Well – actually it’s sometimes also the most, because he tends to steal my drinks when I’m not looking and then he pretends I never had a drink in the first place, which is behaviour that Ford and I have exchanged strong words about in the past. But I trust him with my life even if I don’t trust him with my beer.”

“Wow,” said Trot Harxelfart, sincerely. “Wow, yeah, that was so completely inspirational and cool, like, seriously. I can’t even explain how much I enjoyed the experience of listening to you share your feelings while I looked up the appropriate events timetable to meet your needs and suit your desires, like, _wow_. Would you like the schedule formatted for neural net download or upload to your techno-reader?”

“Could you just print it?” asked Arthur. 

“Sure, uh-huh, no trouble. Printed? On _paper_? Retro! Seventh District, wowee! You guys do things differently there, huh?” Trot Harxelfart handed the printed sheet reverently across the counter, and then crossed his arms across his chest to tap one hand to either of his mid-length epaulettes in a gesture which meant nothing to Arthur but, evidently, meant a lot to Trot Harxelfart. “Party on, you zany cats! Have a wild one!” 

Ford and Arthur left the information centre. Behind them, the mechanism hidden in the ceiling clicked and whirred and coughed out another fluttering cascade of confetti. 

“That was very moving,” said Ford. 

“Oh, shut up,” said Arthur. 

“No, really,” insisted Ford, “it was really like, emotionally affecting and whatever. And if you trust me that much then you’ll trust me about this party, won’t you?”

“I didn’t realise I had a choice,” said Arthur, and then relented: “Yes, obviously. Do you think there’ll be somewhere I can have a bit of a sit-down?”

“A sit-down, a stand-up, an anti-gravity adjustable-angle reclining experience, Arthur, you bet. Whatever you can imagine it’ll be there! Whatever your heart desires!” 

“I wouldn’t say no to a cup of tea,” said Arthur. “Do you think—”

“If your heart desires it, they’ll have it,” Ford said confidently. 

“And a biscuit,” said Arthur. “I could do with a biscuit or two. Digestives, maybe. Chocolate digestives...? But it’s been a while since I had a decent biscuit, that might be too rich for a reintroduction; maybe I’d better start simpler, keep it plain. A custard cream...?”

“Check this,” said Ford. He spread the printed schedule flat on a low wall and prodded at it. Arthur stepped up beside him, realised his mistake, and tried unsuccessfully to step back again; they spent a minute disentangling their epaulettes, and after some careful arrangement they were able to examine the page more or less side by side. “ _Your Heart’s Desire_ – see, that’s tonight’s party tagline. And tomorrow night’s party: _A Cure For All Troubles Which Ail You, Have Ever Ailed You, Will Ever Ail You, Will Ever Have Ailed You, Will Ever Have Been Ailing You_... That’s how you know this is the real deal, Arthur! No details! No need to hype the specifics of the available party amenities! You take what they offer, and hell, you _know_ you’ll be thankful for it!”

“Or a ginger nut,” said Arthur, who had been promised his heart’s desire and was still working to narrow down the options. “You think they’ll have ginger nuts here? Out in space?”

“I expect they’ll even have invasive laser cocktails,” said Ford. “You know how they work? After you drink one, the chemicals react with your stomach acid and activate lasers which surgically cut through whatever internal organs you’ve got lying around down there and stitch them back up again, all in a matter of seconds; it’s a real trip, take it from me. Messy if you’ve eaten within the last twelve hours, though.”

“And if we’re caught lying?” 

“We won’t be,” said Ford. “Come on, how could they catch us? Our story’s watertight. Airtight. Probably not acid-tight, but how likely are we to have to put that to the test?”

“I don’t know,” said Arthur in alarm, “how likely _are_ we to have to put that to the test?”

Ford tipped a hand from side to side, in the pan-galactically recognised gesture of enviable chill which meant: _Ehh... so-so_. 

They passed into a darker street, still long and wide and crowded, but without any of the cherry blossoms or the sweetly lulling music. Here, dance halls lined the road, and basslines thundered from the buildings to shake the street like the planet was undergoing a perpetual earthquake. 

“District Three!” Ford yelled, pointing at a nearby signpost. “Party’s getting started! Feel that beat, Arthur?” 

“Ye-e-e-es!” Arthur yelled back. All of his bones were shaking; his teeth were about to shudder right out of his jaw. 

“This beat’s gonna be _nothing_ on the Seventh District’s beat! The beat in the Seventh District’s gonna be so highly jammed it triggers avalanches massive enough to wipe out entire cities in totally unrelated star systems!” 

“I-i-is tha-a-t re-e-eally a-a-a-a-a re-e-ecomme-me-menda-a-a-a-a-a—” 

And then they were in the Fourth District, and light cannons pulsed across the deep dark velvety green of the Kathtyxine night sky. 

“About this acid,” said Arthur conversationally, “which you mentioned some minutes ago, Ford, this possibility of acid, and us, and the involvement of the two—”

“There’s no risk,” said Ford. “Arthur, come on! Where _is_ the risk? What risk could there possibly be? We’re partners! Comrades-in-arms! You never go anywhere without me and I never go anywhere without you! We’re barely even lying!” 

Arthur reflected on this. Above him, the sky flashed and flared; the Fourth District’s light cannons made it kaleidoscopically deranged. 

“What about the fact we haven’t been together for eleven charks?” said Arthur. 

“Do you know how long a chark is when you convert it to Earth time?” said Ford. 

“No, but I imagine it’s—”

“Roughly a week and a half,” said Ford. “This is a planet of people who like romance so much that they’re constantly breaking up so they can do it all over again. Trust me, Arthur, we’ve been together more than long enough to have earned a perfectly legitimate licence for the Seventh District. We’ve stuck together long enough we could probably get ourselves crowned and enthroned as the legally recognised kings of the Kathtyx 21-C party scene, if we tried.”

“Oh,” said Arthur. “Really? Well, that’s – um. That’s... nice to know, I suppose.” 

And it was: Arthur had never been an overachiever at much in life, but he found it gratifying – in an odd, and warmly satisfactory way – to know that, on a planet full of people infatuated with the idea of infatuation, he was doing much better at holding down a committed long-term relationship than all of them. 

They were in the Fifth District. Somewhere, fireworks screamed up into the sky and exploded. From out of the howling, sparking inferno a pair of colossal eel-like creatures coalesced, flashing dazzling pulses of electrical mating enticement so brightly in the night sky that each flare lit the street up briefly as brightly as midday; the creatures writhed and flashed and at last swam towards each other, and touched, snout to snout – before exploding too, into a single monstrous shower of cascading red sparks. 

Cheers resounded from the streets of the Fifth District. 

“Putting on a show,” said Ford happily. “Imagine that, but more, and forever. Kathtyx 21-C, baby!”

They hurried on their way, sometimes asking directions from passers-by, and sometimes accepting unsolicited directions from passers-by who were excited enough by the sight of Ford and Arthur’s officially licensed ceremonial Seventh District attire that they stopped to encourage them; and, as they hurried on, Arthur’s enthusiasm rose and steadily rose. A place to have a bit of a sit-down, and a cup of tea, and a biscuit, perhaps several, perhaps even a selection to choose from – and acrobats, promised Ford, there would surely be acrobats from the volcanic wastelands of Sxxyxupsyx, who would leap and spring and tumble while wreathed in flames, telling jokes all the while – side-splittingly funny jokes, _impossibly_ funny, the devastating power of their comedy indescribable in the aftermath but utterly inimitable... 

And liquor from every planet in the known galaxy and quite likely from unknown territories beyond it too, liquor from planets in galaxies which had never existed or didn’t yet exist or had only ever existed as theoretical constructs, hypothetical exemplars, abstract conceptual test cases dreamed up solely to explain some complex detail of galactic commerce in university-level economics textbooks... Alcohol strong enough to eviscerate you, and strong enough to numb you to the sensation so that you’d take another swig and do it all again... 

Performers from the intergalactically renowned Mashwoppy’s Reduplicating Amoebic Burlesque troupe, who began every performance as two sinuous and feather-flashing beings preserving their modesty with only a few strategic sequins, and ended the performance as an exponentially huger troupe of performers, all identical copies spawned throughout the show of the first two performers, all feather-flashing and sinuous, sharing between them only the same number of sequins the original pair had had to begin with...

They passed the docking station for a Sixth District party cruise ship, which was anchored to the planet’s surface with a mile-high weight cast in the shape of a giant thumbs-up. Shrieks and yells of excitement came from the skies far above. The ship shook with the impact of the fun being had onboard; the air itself seemed to throb with music, with energy, with romance, with the tantalising promise of a decent cup of tea. 

And suddenly, it was quiet. 

The street ahead of them broadened out into a vast and very pleasant courtyard. In the centre of the courtyard stood a towering latticework structure, and wrapped with care through the gaps of its frame were the trailing blossoms of some sweet-smelling white flower which had been coaxed to grow into the shape of the message: _WELCOME TO THE SEVENTH DISTRICT_. 

“This is it,” said Ford. His voice trembled with anticipation. “Arthur, this is it! We’re really here! Man, the tantrum Zaphod’s going to throw when he finds out! I’ll get Trillian to catch it on holo-vid, I’ll forward it to our entire family; I’ll stick a few copies in a time-chute so even the ones who already bit the dust will get to enjoy it...” 

The extremely wide streets of the Seventh District were deserted, and very quiet. Where alleyways and side streets veered off from the main thoroughfare, they too were built wide enough to accommodate the full impractical span of Seventh District epaulettes. Heart-shaped benches hummed dreamily to themselves at the edges of huge calm courtyards. Flowers wound their way up the sides of restaurants inside which patrons sat separated by their epaulettes, enjoying quietly romantic dinner dates. The air around them smelt sweet as sugar: just enough, and not too much. 

Together they wandered the District’s whimsical twists and turns, following signposts draped with blossoming cascades of those pale, sweet-scented flowers. 

“Or a rich tea,” said Arthur, still deep in thought. “Not too sweet, not too soft. A simple biscuit, but a sophisticated biscuit. Classic. _Classy_. You can’t beat a proper rich tea, can you?”

Ford stopped dead. He seized Arthur’s hand. The eight-foot span of their epaulettes made it a complex manoeuvre, but Ford was agile and determined and his elbows didn’t work in entirely the same way that human elbows tended to; he reached back and seized Arthur’s hand, and, once he had it, he squeezed it. 

“There!” he cried joyfully. “You see that? We’ve made it!”

In front of them, a single road swept forwards. It was a perfectly deserted road, and it swept forwards in a graceful unbroken line towards a single building: which, to Arthur’s hopelessly parochial Earthling eye, bore an uncanny resemblance to any number of rural National Trust properties he’d spent slow, chilly Sundays trudging around in childhood. It had the imposing stone build of a grand old stately home, and the dozens upon dozens of small squinting windows of a grand old stately home, and the forbiddingly lurking, square-angled solidity of a grand old stately home; but no stately home on Earth had ever been constructed on the same staggering scale as _this_ building was constructed. 

It was built from some white stone which seemed to glow in the deep green darkness of the Kathtyxine night. It was utterly quiet. 

They approached it slowly. They approached it in silence, too: Ford’s maniacal enthusiasm was dampened by his sense of awe. Gravel crunched beneath their feet, and without any conscious decision they attempted to soften their steps, trying to tiptoe gently enough to make no sound; to avoid disrupting the perfect and absolute pre-party peace. 

The building in front of them was majestic. It was overwhelming. It was unbelievably big. It was utterly, utterly, utterly quiet. 

“This is it,” Ford whispered reverentially. “We’ve made it, Arthur. Get ready for the last party you’ll ever be capable of enjoying, because no other party will ever live up to the memory of the experience you and I are about to have in here.”

The doors of the main entrance were closed, and about as wide across as an Earth football pitch. “I just want you to know,” said Arthur, “if we _are_ caught—”

“Arthur,” said Ford, “Arthur, oh, Arthur. No need to say it aloud, my centre of celestial mass.” 

“—and if we _are_ accused of lying,” Arthur went on, doggedly, “and if they _do_ throw us out or lock us up in alien jail for trespassing or vaporise us or try anything unspeakable with sardines... then there’s something I want to say to you before that happens, Ford.”

“Hey,” said Ford, kindly. “Arthur, hey! Leave it out, man. No need to say it, I already know.”

“You do?” said Arthur. 

“I do,” confirmed Ford, “and I feel just the same way.”

“You _do_?” said Arthur, startled. “That’s a turn-up for the books. You mind if I ask for that in writing? I’d feel better knowing I’ve got some concrete proof of the fact you just said that, so I can rub it in your face later on and you won’t be able to deny it... Here,” he added, offering a stub of pencil and a scrap of paper from his bag, “you ready? Write: ‘ _I accept full responsibility for whatever is about to transpire and I forfeit all right to pin the blame on Arthur Dent, my loyal and long-suffering best friend in the universe – and furthermore_ ’,” went on Arthur, who was starting to get into it now, “‘ _I pledge to buy all his drinks for the foreseeable future in repayment for all the drinks I have shamelessly nicked off him in the past, and in addition to the above_ ’—”

“No need to pretend, Arthur,” said Ford fondly, scrunching up the piece of paper without having written a word, “I know what it is you _really_ want to tell me.”

“That’s exactly what I want to tell you,” said Arthur. “What else would I want to tell you? If this is all about to go horribly wrong and end in tears before bedtime, then I just want to make sure you know that I’m going to blame you for all of it.”

“Sure, okay,” said Ford indulgently. An intensely affectionate warmth was radiating from the epicentre of his smile. “And I value your friendship too, Earthman. Couldn’t have asked for a better alien sidekick.”

Arthur opened his mouth indignantly, ready to deny first that he was an alien and second that he was the sidekick in this partnership – but really, what was there to deny? If anyone was a natural-born sidekick, it was him: Arthur Dent. And it was a compliment, in any case: far better to be an accomplished and highly-valued sidekick who performed outstandingly in his sidekick role than to be an unreliable, second-rate sidekick who brought nothing much to the quality of anyone’s intergalactic adventures. 

He closed his mouth again. 

On second thoughts, he reopened it. “Thanks a lot,” said Arthur, with difficulty. “Same here, basically. About... friendship, or whatever. You know. _Feelings_ ,” he said, extracting the word from his mouth as awkwardly as though it was a piece of spinach he’d found stuck between his teeth in public. “Valuing... things. Stuff.”

“People,” suggested Ford. 

“Could be,” said Arthur. 

“Me,” suggested Ford. 

“I mean,” said Arthur, “I didn’t, or rather, well, that is to say, I’m not – I, er, I wouldn’t... You _could_ say, for a value of—or rather in a manner of, of... That’s not to say I’m _not_ , or that I am, I’m just—In terms of... of friendship, of you, your general... overall... _personage_...” Arthur had to stop, rubbing a peach-pink ceremonial sleeve across the feverish damp heat of his forehead while he gathered himself for another attempt. “I’m not, you know, I mean, essentially, when you get right down to it, at the end of the day... Ultimately,” said Arthur, struggling valiantly, “what it _is_ , is... in other words, long story short, basically: no one could say I’m _dis_ pleased to have, to have... made your acquaintance, which is to say that, that—Or rather, I mean: I’m not _not_ glad to know you.” 

All of Arthur’s breath escaped him in a sigh of exhausted, triumphant relief. His shoulders sagged; he pressed a hand to his chest as he recovered, eyes closed, breathing hard. “It really takes it out of you,” he said weakly, “talking about your feelings, doesn’t it?” 

“It certainly seems to take it out of _you_ ,” said Ford. 

“I’m not used to expressing my emotions that openly,” explained Arthur. 

“I can tell,” said Ford. He patted Arthur on the back. “You did a seriously remarkable job of it, though. Knocked it right out of the intergalactic hyper-park.”

“Beginners’ luck,” said Arthur modestly. 

“Guess you’ll just have to try it again later and find out,” said Ford. “You ready for this, then?” 

Arthur thought about it. He peered up into the deep green sky, trying and failing to see the top of the building, and thought about it more. He thought of stories, of rumours, of intriguing snippets of galactic gossip; he thought of various baffling hard-partying Guide entries he’d scrolled through at random on lazy days. _Was_ he ready...? 

Lunar peacocks drifting through the grounds, their spectacular tail-feathers slowly vanishing and reappearing over the course of their own two-hour avian eclipse cycle... A buffet table fed by interplanetary suction chute, hooked into the abyssal depths of the famous Rainbow Reef of Epsilon Tllkya B-291: shimmering impossible prismatic fish sucked straight from their deep-sea lives and, a fraction of a microsecond later, plopped directly onto the party table for the freshest possible sashimi experience... Complementary party bags full of gemstones; swimming pools filled with gemstones; rolls of toilet paper studded with gemstones... 

A perfectly-controlled variable internal climate, so that one room could be shaggy with the dripping wet greenery of tropical rainforests where quasi-linear parrots navigated the trees by sidling carefully through the first, second, and fourth dimensions, but _never_ the third, while across the hallway could perhaps be found the bitter ice climate of the winter planets which served cocktails so deeply chilled that patrons of their bars had to be induced into a cryogenic state before being served the beverage through an intravenous drip, in order to medically circumvent the otherwise fatal impact of brain-freeze... and, elsewhere, a room might be found which was exactly as warm as the warmth of a perfect English summer afternoon spent watching cricket on the village green, and no warmer... 

And a selection of rich teas, digestives both plain and chocolate; custard creams, and ginger nuts... Chocolate bourbons? 

Perhaps, thought Arthur, daring to dream, perhaps even chocolate bourbons. 

“I’m ready,” said Arthur boldly. 

“On three,” said Ford. “One... two... _three_ —”

As soon as he reached out to the doors, they hummed and drew smoothly apart to allow them entry. 

Ford and Arthur stepped inside. The doors slid closed again. They were in an entry chamber now, bare except for a scanner in the wall; they showed it their licence papers. 

A small green light flashed approvingly. The next set of vast white doors began to hum. 

“You are now entering the party realms of the Seventh District,” said a voice of indescribable sweetness; it flowed from the overhead speakers, it lilted, it undulated gracefully over the curvaceous peaks and troughs of its exquisitely well-formed syllables. “Please leave your worldly cares in the cloakroom and take a ticket to collect them later. Your inhibitions and regrets may be deposited for safekeeping in the appropriate lockers, or, if you would prefer, donated to our bi-charkly negativity recycling drive. And remember... love is in the air, so breathe deep. Have a wild one, you loopy cats.”

The second set of doors began to move. Arthur’s heart was beating fast. Ford, too excited for words, once again seized Arthur’s hand. This was it – they had made it; they stood together, at last, triumphant on the threshold of a Seven District party. 

The doors finished their slow slide open. They looked inside. 

The space which lay beyond was vast. No rooms or corridors or staircases disturbed it. The building’s interior was hollow: it rose up a dozen stories without interruption, and stretched expansively from side to distant side. Here and there, people moved together through the space. Their extraordinarily long ceremonial epaulettes seemed no more than mere stumps in the vastness of the party chamber. 

The party chamber was, otherwise, empty. No music played. No performers performed. No android butlers shuffled across the expanse of the floor weighed down under immense trays of exotic delicacies. No acrobats writhed and swung from blazing aerial apparatus. 

“Hey,” said Ford, “what the hell is this?” He reached out to grab the epaulette of a beatifically smiling lifeform wandering past them. “What the hell is this?” he inquired. 

“This is the party realm of the Seventh District,” said the beatifically smiling lifeform. Its antennae were nearly as tall as its epaulettes were wide, and splayed out at the very tips into disc-shaped suckers which resembled quivering sink plungers. “Welcome! Is it your first time? Man, you guys are going to experience the most extreme and funky sensations of joy tonight, I can’t even tell you.”

“Where’s the stuff?” said Ford. 

“The stuff?”

“Yeah, you know. The party stuff.” Ford looked wildly around the room. “Where’s the booze? The babes? The novelty photo booths that trap a fragment of your soul inside a timeloop in order to guarantee a part of your consciousness will be reliving a pre-programmed slice of the party for all perpetuity? Where, in other words, is the _party_?”

“This is it!” enthused the being, throwing a few of its arms out wide. “Hey! Check it! Who needs alcohol when you’ve got love? This is _it_ , man! Seventh District! Yowza!”

Ford looked at Arthur. Arthur looked at Ford. They looked away from each other and looked instead around the vast barren room. 

Some people sat together on very long sofas, united by their love but separated by their epaulettes. Others stood directly face to face, holding hands or forelimbs or whatever other easily-grasped appendages were possessed by the object of their affection, gazing in rapturous silence into each other’s eyes. Some were drifting together above the ground, not speaking, their wings unfurled or their hoverboots jetting small hissing puffs of gas, lost in blissful joy at the unsurpassable pleasure of each other’s company. 

“This is a joke,” said Ford. 

“No jokes, man. Nothing here but love.”

“Yeah, all right,” said Ford tensely, “but the thing is, okay, this is false marketing. See here? See this?” He yanked out the crumpled paper from the information centre and shook it flat. “ _Your Heart’s Desire_! Right here in print! What kind of junky party planner hypes up the biggest big one of all time and doesn’t even—”

“Actually,” said Arthur, who suspected he was starting to get the hang of things around here—

“But your heart’s desire _is_ here,” said the being. It waved at Arthur. “What else could you possibly want, man? What could bring you greater joy than the love you’ve got right here? Astounding fur work, guy,” it added to Arthur, with deep sincerity. “Love what you’ve done there.”

“My, er – what...? Oh,” said Arthur, when the being brushed an auxiliary limb against its face; he touched his own face and felt the stubble there self-consciously, “well, it’s just, you know, the whole hitch-hiking thing; don’t get a lot of reliable, er, grooming time... And trying to shave in anti-gravity is a challenge. But I do my best, you know? I make an effort. So thanks very much, it’s nice to have that appreciated. I like to think I keep myself in decent-looking shape, most of the—”

“And tomorrow,” said Ford, pursuing the point with the single-minded fervour of a bailiff with dreams of promotion, “look, _A Cure For All Troubles Which Ail You_ , blah blah blah. What the hell is _that_ supposed to mean, if not endless all-you-can-drink refills of Slippery Sloshing Fuse-Blowers?”

“I think it probably means love,” said Arthur. 

“It means love,” said the being. 

Arthur nodded wisely. “I thought it would mean love,” he remarked. 

“This is outrageous,” said Ford. 

“I think it’s quite romantic, actually,” said Arthur, who was starting to enjoy himself. “Can we sit on those sofas, by the way? Just – go and sit down on them...? Is that allowed? We don’t have to... to pass a test, or fill in any forms, or deliver a group presentation about the most thoughtful personalised anniversary presents we’ve given each other over the decades or anything like that, do we?” 

“You can sit down,” said the being. “You can stand up! You can do whatever you want, man! Seventh District, hey! Wow! I’d love to listen to that presentation, though, if you don’t mind me getting really real with you for a moment here.” 

“You’re telling me there’s no alcohol here?” said Ford. 

“Love is the only drug we need,” said the beatific being. 

“Could you point me to the kitchen?” asked Arthur. “Nothing fancy, I just want to use the kettle. And perhaps have a look in the biscuit tin.”

“What’s a biscuit tin?”

“It’s, er – a tin for biscuits.” 

This didn’t seem to help. The beatific being was still looking at him keenly, antennae quivering. Its demeanour was friendly; its attitude seemed helpful – perhaps, decided Arthur, if he could persuade it to understand then it _would_ help him; perhaps biscuit tins simply went by another name in space, and if they could only work together to overcome the translation difficulties then he’d be rewarded with all the biscuit tins he could dream of... 

“You have a tin,” explained Arthur, “and... you put biscuits in it. In the tin. The biscuits go... _inside_ the tin. That’s roughly the general idea.”

“What’s a biscuit?” the being asked alertly. 

“It’s – well, it’s a sort of... sweet, crunchy baked good. They’re about... _this_ size, usually,” Arthur went on, demonstrating with his hands, “and you eat them with tea. On my home planet we used to, anyway. In my home country, at least. You can dunk them and eat them soggy or just keep them on the saucer for a nibble every now and then, or a bit of both; you can mix and match, whichever you prefer—”

“What’s tea?” 

“It’s, um – well, it’s a... a caffeinated beverage,” Arthur began, bravely, “made from—” 

“Oh, hey! Hey, now! Caffeine?” said the beatific being. “Isn’t that a stimulant substance? Caffeine! None of _that_ , hey, wow! No way! The only drug we need here in the Seventh District is... _love_.”

Arthur looked at Ford. 

“Oh, _there_ we go,” said Ford, meeting his stare with a certain grim satisfaction, “that expression you’ve got on, that one, yes, _that_ one – that’s exactly how I’m feeling too. That is _exactly_ how it feels. How d’you like it, eh?”

“Not at all,” said Arthur. “Ford—”

“My thoughts exactly,” said Ford. 

They left the party chamber. The doors slid smoothly shut behind them. They passed through into the entry chamber and showed their licences to the scanner and were released into the utter silence of the Seventh District at night. 

The vast bulk of the party building glowed white against the deep dark bottle green of the night sky, though Ford and Arthur didn’t see it: they left without a backwards glance. 

+++

“It’s not all bad, though,” Ford said optimistically a while later, once his state of devastated shock had begun to subside and his state of speechless horror had begun to ease, and his usual state of incurably chronic good cheer had begun to elbow its way back to the forefront and aggressively reassert itself as the only correct and acceptable state of being for the being known as Ford Prefect. “A licence for the Seventh District is recognised as legally equivalent to marriage in most planetary systems nowadays, so a whole new range of intriguing travel opportunities now lies before us to explore.”

They were sitting together in the spaceport, in front of a window with a floor-to-ceiling view into the darkness of open space. The window also overlooked the spaceport’s landing strips, where Ford and Arthur were keeping a particularly close watch on a square marked out with a large _S_ in the middle: the saucer-pad, currently empty. Hitching a ride on the next zippy little flying saucer to stop by would be the fastest way for them to get the hell out of here. 

“Marriage?” said Arthur. 

“Legally equivalent,” corrected Ford. 

“To _marriage_?” said Arthur. 

“Well, we’ve got the paperwork now,” said Ford, giving the battered old satchel in his lap a loving pat, “and that’s the important part, isn’t it? We can prove whatever we need to, whenever we need to. We don’t need to actually keep on keeping up the act.”

A hyper-lorry ship transporter was sinking slowly down onto a landing site, its immense bulk weighed down by the dozens of brand new smaller ships strapped securely into place across it. Arthur watched it, and thought about it. 

At length he said, “We didn’t really do much acting, though. Did we?”

“A similar thought had crossed my own mind, I confess.”

“So there isn’t really much of an act for us to stop keeping up, is there?”

“My own thoughts had proceeded along a not entirely dissimilar route, I admit.”

“So there’s not really much difference either way,” said Arthur. “Being... legally equivalent to married, or not. Is there?”

“I’m having trouble imagining any significant material changes it might effect, it’s true.”

The hyper-lorry heaved, and sank, and came to rest at last. It’d be no good for hitching, Arthur knew: too big, too cumbersome, too much time wasted on disembarking passengers, offloading imports, reloading exports... “What if we don’t fancy being married?” he asked. 

“Then we can just rip up the licences,” said Ford. “Chuck them in the bin. Toss them out an airlock somewhere. Or just tuck them away in our bags and never mention them again, and that way no one will know, but we’ll still have them as insurance, just in case... Well,” said Ford, decisively, “just in case.”

“In case what?” said Arthur. 

“Who knows?” said Ford. He flung his hands out expansively wide. “It’s a big galaxy! It’s a seriously great big gigantic old massively big, big, _big_ galaxy out there, Arthur! Who knows what kind of travel perks the legal proof of marriage might bring? Free drinks! Complementary upgrades! We can pretend it’s our wedding anniversary in a restaurant any time we like and demand our meals fully comped!”

Inside a nearby rubbish bin were jammed four extremely long peach-pink epaulettes, snapped off at the shoulders from the ceremonial attire they’d once been attached to. Now, they were jutting up towards the spaceport’s ceiling like a small team of pole-vaulters had all abruptly given up on their dreams at once. Arthur was in his patched and tattered dressing gown. Ford was in his patched and tattered suit of burgundy tweed. 

It _was_ a big galaxy, Arthur reflected sagely. There was no doubt about it. It was a great big galaxy and anything could happen in it, and he supposed he didn’t particularly mind that this was what had been and gone and happened in it now. Given the usual ease with which he could imagine the worst-case scenario and then immediately at least a dozen more and even worse scenarios, Arthur felt it probably said something that the worst-case scenario he could currently imagine was the inevitability of Ford bragging about it to Zaphod. 

“All right,” said Arthur, agreeably. “That doesn’t sound too bad, I suppose. Could be worse. Could be a whole lot worse. We can keep on— _Ford_!” he said urgently, sitting forward – but Ford had seen it too; he was already on his feet, swinging his satchel over his shoulder as he grabbed for the Thumb flashing on its string around his neck. 

The lights at each corner of the saucer-pad were blinking red. The space traffic controller was dashing forward, waving their flags frantically. A zippy little flying saucer was coming in: Ford and Arthur were getting the hell out. 

All the rest of the galaxy was waiting, and it _had_ to be better than here. 

+++ 

_The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ has this to say on the topic of Kathtyx 21-C: 

Overrated. Overhyped. Not what it’s cracked up to be. Give it a miss. 

But if you happen to be passing through the Kathtyxine system, why not make a stop at the mountainous sport-and-spa resorts of Kathtyx 21-A? Cabins are available for rental only to lifeforms with verified membership of pre-existing romantic configurations, which means you’re free to relax and enjoy the seething, sulphurous waters of the natural hot springs, with their stupendous views overlooking the zero-gravity hopball tournament pitches far enough below that you can enjoy the game without hearing the screams or getting your groovy wetsuit stained by the splashback, secure in the knowledge that no rowdy singletons will disturb your stay. Check it out! Have a dreamy one!

**Author's Note:**

> To AO3 user spacedogprincess: I was very happy to match with you on a series I've loved as much and as long as I've loved The Hitchhiker's Guide! Your request mentioned romantic fluff, and I tried my best to deliver. I hope you have a very merry Yuletide!


End file.
